This invention relates generally to bedding capable of containing and displaying various objects within itself. More particularly, the invention relates to a crib bumper cover with a means for holding, containing and displaying various items, therein. Most particularly, the invention relates to a baby crib bumper cover with a picture holding means within the bumper cover itself, enabling such things as photographs, drawings, or flexible non-breakable mirrors to be removably displayed therein.
Primary caretakers, members of the health profession and early childhood educators are all interested in educational tools which enhance the psychological development of children within their natural environment. In the early stages of child development, children are shaped by their visual association. Visual experience is crucial for the correct development of certain brain circuits. Increasing a child""s visual stimulus from birth may enhance their ability and better equip them to carry out various visually oriented and visually dependent tasks. Furthermore, repeating some visual images over and over allows a child to become visually familiar with those specific images and also, allows the child to easily incorporate these images into their lives. An in-depth analysis of visual exposure in connection to the mental development during the early childhood years is described in Dr. Lisa Eliot""s book xe2x80x9cWhat""s Going On In There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Lifexe2x80x9d Copyright 1999, Bantam Book which is herein Incorporated by Reference.
Since, newborns are to some extent color blind and can only view the shape of an object, infants innately prefer to gaze at patterned objects rather then plain ones or featureless surfaces. In addition, the human face and face-like arrangements of shapes fascinate infants. The infant brain prefers to gaze at the human face more than the faces of other species and over inanimate objects.
To continuously enhance the development of children, products which will allow caretakers to personalize and select the visual images that children view daily in the natural surrounding of their crib are needed. However, many of the educational tools and products available in today""s market for early childhood development contain set images for children to view (e.g. crib bumper fabric covers have cows, bells, angels, ABC blocks, cartoon characters, etc., all inlayed into the fabric) which are not changeable. Therefore, caretakers have to settle for devices that cannot be tailored to their child""s individual growth. This is frustrating for caretakers who want to customize and personally select different images over time during the early formative years of their development.
Additionally, caretakers are constantly purchasing new teaching tools for different stages of a child""s development. Moreover, many educational tools are gender specific or depict a particular subject matter to coincide with the decor of the child""s room such that if the decor of the child""s room should change or a child of the opposite gender uses the surrounding, an entirely new product would have to be purchased. Also, existing child bedding may not be customized and manipulated to reflect the different stages of the child""s mental growth and developmental cycles. It therefore would be desirable for caretakers to be able to customize the child""s natural environment to reflect the child""s developmental stages and to enhance their visual perception within the early childhood years.
Existing crib bedding fabrics or bumpers do not provide for the interchanging and displaying of different graphics of the face or other objects chosen and customized by the caretakers within the crib bumper.
The present invention relates to an interchangeable graphics displaying crib bumper. More particularly, the present invention relates to a picture displaying crib bumper fabric cover. The invention provides the caretaker with the ability to tailor visual stimulus that a child is exposed to daily while in a crib, wherein a crib is defined as any baby containment system.
Thus, one feature of the invention is that it offers versatility in many dimensions. Caretakers can change the graphics to coincide with the developmental progression of the infant. The caretaker can control the content of the graphics displayed to improve the visual association and mental development in the child.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings.